Or Nanny McPhee 2 if you prefer. Or if you’re fond of sarcasm, like me, Mary Poppins 3.

Having been forced to sit through the first Nanny McPhee film so many times I actually grew to enjoy it, and then so many times after that that I got totally sick of it, I didn’t hold out much hope of liking this.
My first thoughts at the start were surprise that the middle-English voice narrating belonged to Maggie Gyllenhaal, and that the narration itself along with the freeze-frames at the start were really annoying. What I hadn’t expected was for the annoyingness to wear off, and that the whole thing would continue to be quite tolerable.

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a mother trying to run a farm and bring up three kids, while her husband is away at war. The children are supposedly running riot (but actually seemed pretty well-behaved to me). Rhys Ifans plays Maggie Gyllenhaal’s brother, who is a jerk and trying to persuade her to sell the farm to cover a gambling debt. Two posh kids from the city show up, act like spoilt brats and make life even more difficult.
Cue Emma Thompson’s magical nanny who shows up in the nick of time to teach the kids to be nice, and basically save the day.

There are a fair few laughs to be had with the magic tricks that McPhee pulls – my kids had a rare moment of agreement that the flying pig was the best part of the film – and there are some interesting big-name in small cameos (Ewan McGregor barely has a single line).

The kids both agreed it was better than the first Nanny McPhee, though they disagreed on whether it was better than last week’s How To Train Your Dragon – this may be a girl/boy thing (it was my son who preferred the dragons, in case your wondering).

Personally I would also have to say that this is a more enjoyable film than the first Nanny McPhee, although I may change my mind after another thirty viewings…

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